


Chance

by okcooldo



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: F/M, Petra survives, Rivetra Week 2018, already posted on tumblr, i think, might continue it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-17
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-15 17:27:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28817070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/okcooldo/pseuds/okcooldo
Summary: She does not know why or how she survived. It was chance. Something that can’t be predicted, understood or controlled. It was luck. It was fortune.Prompt from Rivetra Week 2018
Relationships: Levi Ackerman & Petra Ral, Levi/Petra Ral
Comments: 8
Kudos: 38





	Chance

When she opens her eyes, all she can see is blurry green. Then her eyes focus, and she recognize the canopy of the forest.

She tries to move, but the moment she lifts her head from the ground her mind goes blank again and her body screams her to stop. So, she waits, defeated and lost.

She remembers the expedition, she remembers what the Captain did not told them, she remembers the boy, Eren, and she remembers the female Titan. She remembers everything.

How did she survive that? Are the others alive?

Too much question and she can’t answer any of them. There are some horrible, terrible sounds reasoning between the trees and fear take her whole. She still can’t move, and she can’t tell if the screams and the loud step of the Titans are approaching or leaving. She hears something that sound like the sweet familiar sound of a 3DGM far, far away, “they came for me” she thinks, relieved. Then she falls unconscious again.

When she wakes up, she feels even worse than earlier. Her thoughts are still clear, but she does not understand why she left the forest to lay on the hard ground of the plain, under the blue sky. She panics when she recognizes the white fabric wrapped around her. A scream wants to escape her mouth, but her lips are closed, it is dried blood and it cracks when she insists; the moan coming from her lungs is so ridiculous that she want to take it back. Maybe it’s the adrenaline of being took for a cadaver that wakes her up but slowly, she tries moving again. She never felt like that, everything, every single part of her body hurts like hell.

An eternity later, she is standing on her feet. She’s unsteady, full of wound and cuts, and she is pretty sure her spine is going to break if she takes a single step. But she takes it, and then the other.

She is using her blades as crutches and the progression is hard, but trying to fly would kill her, no matter if her gas tank is still half full. She cries all the way, and moan and scream every two meters. When the sweet straight line of Wall Rose appears at the horizon, while the sun set, she nearly abandons; it is too far away from her reach. But the thought of dying so near home makes her mind revolt.

When she is near enough to see the human’s silhouettes, all the way up, her body betrays her. She falls on the ground, and the dirt welcomes her. When she closes her eyes, she is not sure she will wake up, but there is a smile on her face; the sound of the cables sliding toward her, and the shouts of the garrison soldiers accompanies her while she falls unconscious.

She awakes again, and the muscles of her back recognize the hard stone of the Wall. Relief takes her, and she feels like she is going to die right there. Her eyes can’t open, it would be too hard to do it. She can hear the murmurs of the soldiers, she is too tired to understand what they are saying but she feels their presence all around her and she knows they’ll take care of her. Suddenly a voice speaks, at her right, and her head automatically turn to the side of the sound.

“Petra” the voice says again, and if she thought she felt relieved some seconds before, it is nothing compared to what she feels right now.

A hand falls on her forehead and she forces her eyelids to open. It’s blurry. The first time she opened her eyes it was to discover the green of the forest, the second time it was the blue of the sky, the third time it is the dark of his hair.

“Captain” she tries to say, but no sounds leaves her mouth.

“It’s okay, don’t speak” he orders.

Her eyes closes against her will and his hand leave her face. She wants to ask him to put it there again because now she knows he is here she does not want him to leave her side, but she can’t speak. A hand clenches her, and she knows it’s his, even if he never held it before.

“I’m taking you with me.” It’s his voice but there is so much emotions in it she wonders if she’s getting delirious.

Exhaustion takes her as he continues speaking.

The fourth time, she is in a hospital. She knows it because the mattress is soft, the light is white, and it smells like death. She has been in this kind of place numerous times, and when she turns her head to the chair at her left, she can already see the image of a worried Auruo. But he is not here. The chair is empty.

Her chest gets heavier and Petra lets her eyes flee to the other persons in the room. There’re three other beds with people on it but they’re all civilians. It isn’t the infirmary of the barracks.

Her thoughts are still clear. Gunther is dead, his neck was sliced in the worst possible way and you don’t survive these types of wound, she made this cut enough times to know it’s deadly. Erd’s lower half was eaten and separated from his body, he can only be dead. Her heart sunk lower in her chest. It leaves it to Auruo. Auruo that wasn’t wounded when she was hit. Auruo the best of the team. Auruo that would have slept days and nights at her bed if he was alive. But he is not there.

She is the only one left.

There’s three wounded around her, there’s two nurses talking lightly at the opposite side of the room and she is in a hospital full of people. But she never felt more alone.

She is the only one left.

When she closes her eyes once more, she wonders if she really should have fought that hard to return home. Maybe if she had known they were gone she wouldn’t have tried at all. For a brief moment she thinks about Eren, about the possibility that he may have survived – because she can’t accept the fact that her squad failed their last mission – then she falls asleep again.

After that she alternates between consciousness and unconsciousness, she can’t tell for how long. Her body hurts and she does not eat much. Her bandages are changed a lot, but she does not ask what her injuries are and how bad they are. She does not speak, and the nurses and doctors do not tell her a single thing. She waits. She regrets having done what she had done. She wishes she had stayed in the plain. And why is no one visiting her? It worries her more than she allows herself to think about.

She dreams a lot and all her dreams are about the female titan that pursued them. She has to endure the sight of this demon healing her eye faster than the other again and again. She’s on her horse and she’s running away, and she hears the sturdy pace of her monstrous feet running after her. She sees Gunther’s neck being sliced and every time she tries to warn him her voice makes no sound, every time she tries to push him away, she is too late. Erd screams for her when the titan crushes him between her teeth, and she can only watch. He begs, and he cries, and she stands on a tree and she does not move. She remembers flying too low and Auruo telling her to go up but her 3DGM does not work and she’s stuck on the ground, she sees the tree getting nearer and nearer and she feel the push of the beast on her back but there is no pain in her dreams, just fear.

Auruo’s death change all the time.

Sometimes he is eaten whole, sometimes he looks at her for a long time and turn away, sometimes she kills him herself, her blades full of his blood.

That’s what her life looks like for some time, nightmares when she sleeps and pain when she wakes up. She does not keep track of the days passing.

One day when she opens her eyes Levi is there, and it so unexpected that for once her injuries does not hurt, her body and mind are completely concentrated on him. He is there, sitting on this chair, arms crossed, looking at her with hided concern, and suddenly she remembers why she fought so hard to survive.

He seems like he wants to speak, his mouth slightly open and his brows furrowed, but nothing comes.

“Auruo is dead” she eventually says.

That’s not what she wanted to tell him, but the thought has been on her mind for too long now; and even if she knows what he is going to say she need to hear it from his mouth.

“He is” he responds. There’s grief in his voice and his eyes flew away from hers for some seconds, before returning to her “How are you?”

“I don’t know, it hurts like hell, but the doctors didn’t tell me anything, so I suppose I’ll survive. Eren?”

“Alive. A lot of things happened I’ll tell you later. Do you want tea?” he asks, and the question is so surprising, he seems so uneasy, that all she can do is nods.

He leaves, and the second she cannot see him she regrets having said yes. She fears he will not return and that she’ll has to stay alone with her thoughts, and she cannot support this anymore. She has to see people, she has to leave this bed, to speak and be part of the world again. In this place there is only the ghosts of her comrades and the terrifying thought of the female Titan. If she stays there, she’s going to turn mad.

He returns with warm cups and when the scent of green tea invades her nose she already feels better. He explains her everything. How Eren survived, how they had to leave the bodies in the plain – and his eyes does not leave the inside of his cup during all the explication – how they had already returned in the castle when a garrison soldier rushed in, telling them Petra Ral was alive, how he took his horse and returned to the wall angry as hell, being certain it couldn’t be her, how he found her at death’s doors and how it was impossible, how they transported her to the hospital of Karanese, how they found who was the female Titan and what happened in Sina. He returned to Karanese the moment they had to admit they weren’t able to break the glass Annie Leonhart was hidden in. When he finally stops speaking her cup his empty since long. He didn’t touch his. It’s the first time she heard him talk for so long, he seems exhausted.

“I’m sorry Captain, we weren’t able to protect Eren. You trusted us, he trusted us, and we failed miserably”.

“Don’t be stupid” he spats, “you couldn’t do anything against this bitch. I should…” but he stops himself before going further. She’s not going to ask him what he wanted to say, he’s been acting so strange since he is there, so out of character, and she does not want to push him.

He takes her cup from her hands and puts it on the table, next to his. His right hand stays on her arm, clenching it, and his eyes lock into hers, there’s determination in them.

“I’m glad you’re alive Petra”

She can’t contain the smile that appears on her lips, nor the tears in her eyes.

Her other hand goes over his and she clenches it too, something passes between them at this moment, she couldn’t name it; then a patient in the room cough and he retreats in the chair.

“You said” she wonders “you said you saw me dead. How is it that I’m alive? I don’t understand”

“I don’t understand either” he shrugs “I don’t care. Call it luck or chance or what you want, that doesn’t matter. You survived.”

Why me? She wants to ask, but she keeps her words to herself. Levi looks at the clock on the wall above her, and to the way his face frowns she knows what he’s going to say.

“You’re going to leave” she says, and she can’t hide the terror in her voice.

“I am. There’s a reunion about how our action destructed half of Sina, I have to be with Erwin and the others”.

“Don’t leave me there” she pleads “Please, make them send me to the barrack’s infirmary. I feel better now, I can’t stay alone in this place”

She sounds like a little girl, not like a soldier, and she would be ashamed if she wasn’t sure she couldn’t handle more of this place. Levi seems like he is hesitating, but then he nods, and she feels a weight being removed from her shoulders.

“Thanks” she sighs.

He stands up to leave, his hand goes to her cheek.

“Take care Petra”

When he leaves, she is way more confident than she ever was.

She does not know why or how she survived. It was chance. Something that can’t be predicted, understood or controlled. It was luck. It was fortune. All she knows is that she survived, and she’s going to devote this chance to Levi.


End file.
